(Paradise of Bhaishajyaguru discovered at the Mogao Caves.)
Pierre A. Riffard suggests a decision tree of the various concepts and ideological choices about life after death: a dozen types of survival are considered, that can coexist or succeed, merge or divide depending on the people, actions, circumstances. They are available mostly in neutral existence, larval existence, demonic existence, damnation or salvation, reincarnation or a metempsychosis transmigration transformation in a star, universal palingenesis or eternal return.
- Neutral existence, Limbe.
- According to the Qur’an (VII, 46), there is a “veil (hijab) between Heaven and Hell, “al-A ̔râf (rampart, walls) remains reserved, it seems, to those who is equally good and evil.
- According to Thomas Aquinas, children who die without baptism go to heaven or hell or they do not feel pain and are not aware of missing a supernatural destiny (Quaestiones disputatae De malo, q. 5, art. 3) (1270).
- Larval existence
- Homer: “The soul (psukhê) will return to earth as a smoke with a harsh voice” (Iliad, XXIII, 107).
- Ancient Jews: “The Shadows (Harÿfa’im) tremble under earth” (Job xxvi, 5).
- Demonization
- In Rome, the “larvae” or “lemurs” are souls of the dead become evil demons (Apuleius, From demon of Socrates, XV).
- Damnation
- Buddhism has Six Destinies (sad-gati) in rebirths (punarbhava), three of which are “bad”: animal (tiryagyoni-gati), hungry ghost (preta-gati), inhabitant of hell (naraka-gati).
- Christianity: “And will put them into the fire; there will be weeping and cries of sorrow. Then will the upright be shining as the sun in the kingdom of their Father. He who has ears, let him give ear.” (Matthew XIII 41-42)
- Hello
- Buddhism maintains that it occurs at the end of the cycle of rebirth (samsâra), a complete exhaustion (nirupadhishesha-nirvâna), like the fire that has consumed its fuel (Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Discours sur le nirvâna parfait) (third century . av. AD).
- Christianity: “For the reward of sin is death; but what God freely gives is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.” (St. Paul, Epistle to the Romans, VI, 23).
- Reincarnation.
- Allan Kardec, spiritualist “Reincarnation, the Spirit return to bodily life … It can take place on this earth or in other areas, but still in a human body, and never in that of an animal” (Practical direction on the spirit manifestations, 1858 ed. 1,923 p. 27).
- Papus, occultist: “Reincarnation is the return of the spiritual principle in a new physical body. For a human being, this envelope is still a human body “(Reincarnation, 1912, Dangles, 1968, p. 12).
- Metempsychosis, samsâra (cycle of birth and death).
- Hinduism: “As you leave old clothes to make new ones, so the soul [nara: the human being, the incarnation] leaves the body to coat worn new body [of man, devil, animal, maybe plant] “(Bhagavad-Gîtâ, II, 22) (V ° -IIE av.-AD c.); “Who kills a Brahmin enter dogs or pigs, donkeys, camels, cows, goats, sheep, deer or birds matrices, or even [demons such] that Kandala or the Pukkasa “(Laws of Manu, Ch. XII, 55) (200 BC. AD-200 AD. AD).
- Transformation in star or constellation, or transport in the night sky.
- In Egypt, the Pharaoh Unas at his death (2323 BC. AD?), became the constellation of Orion (Pyramid Texts, Sarcophagus Chamber, Southwall, utterance 219, 186).
- Aristophanes: “It is not true what they say about the air that we become stars soon we die? “(Peace, 832-837) (421 BC. AD).
- Metamorphosis, universal palingenesis.
- Orpheus (?): “There is an ancient tradition, we keep memory, that souls arrived here [Earth] exist there [the Hereafter], and then again and then returned here born from the dead [all: dust, germs, plants, etc. as parts or assemblies]” (Plato, Phaedo, 70 c).
- Leibniz: “There is therefore a point of metempsychosis, but there’s metamorphosis; animals change, take leave and only party “(Principles of Nature and Grace, § 6) (1714).
- Eternal return, cosmic palingenesis.
- The Mesopotamians “But Ishtar [goddess of fertility, love, war] is all that and more. It is the re-born … It is the rhythm, and rhythm have no end, is death, they all have a beginning “(The Phoenician Letters, Manchester, Mowat Publishing, 1979, 34-35) .
- Stoicism “Socrates exist again, and Plato, and every man with his friends and fellow citizens; all of them suffer the same things, will handle the same things; any city, any town, any field will be restored. This reconstruction (APOCATASTASIS) of the universe will happen, not once, but many times “(Némésios of Emesa, On the Nature of Man, 38).
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